“Well, that’s bullshit.” He doesn’t turn the TV off, but he mutes it, a good enough sign that I’m not getting out of talking to him.
How exactly do I tell him I’ve been in love with my girlfriend for the last fifteen years, and, oh yeah, we’re not actually dating? Jacob and I aren’t friends really. Just work friends. For as well as we get along on shift, I know as little about the details of his personal life as he knows about mine.
“It’s just a problem with Finley.”
He makes a humming noise in the back of his throat. Takes a sip of his soda. “She upset about Charlie trying to get you to move to Maine?”
I stop pacing, stare at him, unblinking. “What?”
Jacob shrugs, kicking his feet out on the recliner. “You got a text from him the other day with a house listing in Maine. I accidentally read it, thinking it was my phone. Put two and two together.”
My shoulders sag, and I kick the corner of the cinder block wall with the tip of my shoe. “No, she doesn’t know about that. But I guess that’s part of it.”
His brows lift on his forehead, surprised. “You haven’t talked to her about it?”
I shake my head, considering how much to say. “No, things are…complicated between us.”
Jacob nods, as if he understands, and for the first time, I’m curious about his personal life. I know he’s married, no kids.When we first started working together, he and his wife, Amelia, were dating. I wasn’t invited to the wedding, but I didn’t expect to be since it was just a small backyard ceremony with his closest friends and family. He’s always seemed happy, settled. Maybe that’s why I haven’t gotten to know him too much better outside of work. I can only be surrounded by everyone else’s contentment for so long before I start to spiral.
But now I wonder if he could be a friend if I tried. If I should even bother trying to form another attachment to someone I might leave in a few months if things with Finley don’t work out.
I wonder if Jacob is going to continue, if he’s going to offer me sage advice from one happily married man to a very unhappily single one, but instead, he just turns the volume back up, says, “All the good relationships are complicated, Grey. If they’re not, there’s no reason to fight for them.”
His words feel like shrapnel, hitting all my vulnerable parts, and I think maybe he knows that, that he knows me better than I thought, because he doesn’t look at me as I swallow against the lump in my throat. He gives me space to process, his attention squarely focused on the TV.
I need air, so instead of continuing my pacing, I head for the door and let myself out into the muggy evening.
Surprise shudders through me when I see Finley outside, climbing out of her car, looking as shocked as I am. Like she pulled up to my place of work and didn’t expect to see me here. There are flowers in her hand, another delivery, probably for Heather, and my heart squeezes. I desperately want someone to think of me, to love me, like that, enough to send me anI’m thinking of yougift when I have a shitty day.
“Hey,” I say when she gets close enough. She’s wearing white linen shorts that show off her long, tan legs and a gray ribbed tank that hugs tight to all her curves. I know what they feel likebeneath my hands now, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at her the same.
Pink colors her cheeks, like she spent all day in the sun, but I wonder if it’s maybe embarrassment instead. “Hey.” She pauses, the green in her eyes swallowed up by amber today, the color of the expensive whiskeys Holden keeps in his bar cabinet. “I brought flowers for you.”
I stare at the vase in her hand, sprigs of eucalyptus and wildflowers in shades of light blue springing up out of it. “Why?” My eyes snag on hers, and a smile twitches at the corner of my lips at the consternation that flashes over her expression. “I mean, thank you. They’re beautiful. But also, why?”
The color in her cheeks deepens, and this time, I’m sure it’s a blush and not just time in the sun. She looks away from me, drumming the fingers of her free hand on the spot on her thigh just below the hem of her shorts. “I felt bad. About last night.”
I’ve felt a lot of things in the last twenty-four hours, butbadisn’t one of them, and my confusion must show on my face, because she says, “About pressuring you. When that’s not what you want.”
She has no idea the things I want, and frankly, it’s a very good thing. But right now, I want to reassure her. I don’t want her to think she was alone in how she was feeling last night. “Fin,” I say, then wait for her gaze to fasten on mine. She looks vulnerable standing in front of me, and if my self-control weren’t absolutely shredded, I’d reach for her. “You didn’t pressure me. I felt the same way you did.”
Her throat bobs in a heavy swallow, and I can’t help it; my eyes track the movement, settling on the spot on her neck I’ve dreamed of kissing, tasting. The thing is, I know how she’d taste now, that she’s every bit as sweet as I always imagined she’d be, and my bones quake with the need to touch her.
Surprise settles over her features, along with something that looks like want. “Then why…?” She trails off, like she doesn’t know how to finish the sentence.Why did you leave? Why didn’t you kiss me? Why didn’t you touch me how you wanted?
I step in closer, until there’s only a breath of space between us, so close that she has to tip her head up to catch my gaze. I lower my voice to something barely above a whisper when I say, “I wanted it too much. I wantedyoutoo much.”
It’s as honest as I can be without pulling my heart out and pinning it to my sleeve.
Her eyes blow wide, the pupil devouring her iris, until her gaze has gone black, heavy with something usually reserved for somewhere with more privacy. Not the oversized driveway of a fire station.
“Oh,” she says, and it sounds as breathless as I feel.
I swallow, nod.
“Then why?” she asks again.
I search my fuzzy brain for the words, my eyes settling on all the places on her face that I want to touch. The flush staining her cheeks. The freckles dotting her nose. The arch of one eyebrow that always reaches higher than the other, making her look perpetually curious. The deep Cupid’s bow of her top lip. The curve of her ear, the spot I brushed with my lips, eliciting a shiver from her.
